A few pre-buy materials/translucency questions

[Turner]

Hi all,

Thinking about getting Twilight after reading a bit about SU renderers.

Anyway, one thing that's important to me is to be able to accurately simulate (i.e. not fake) translucent materials such as rice paper, lampshades, etc. wherein the lamp/light source image is not visible through the material.

I also need to be able to use frosted/etched glass, preferably with the surface features controllable via image textures to simulate things such as sandblasted patterns where some of the glass is smooth and other parts are rough, sort of like a shower door or a glass with a logo etched onto it. (Or a glass window with the top clear but sandblasted artwork.)

I've been looking for example but can't tell for sure if what I'm seeing really Twilight doing this, or if it's faked. (Probably a mixture of both...)

Also, been looking for a "visual" materials library; Kerkythea seems to still be down. I know they had some good examples.

Any help appreciated!

thanks,
Andrew

[Fletch]

Materials can be very accurately simulated, if you are using very accurate models. The quality of modeling is important.
You will need to use KT's material editor to create your material libraries, then load the libraries into Twilight.
Using N-K info in your material will be important for you.
We may be able to find some KT material libaries if you can remember what it's called that you need to find.

[Turner]

Hi Fletch,

Actually I went looking for Kerkythea but their site is down.

Anyway, not sure what "N-K" means! (?)

There isn't anything specific I'm looking for, and having read through the manual a bit more I see most of what I'm looking for seems possible. I will look further to see how the model itself should be handled. In other words, if I'm trying to simulate frosted glass, how much of an effect the thickness of the glass has, if I should apply only to one side, etc.

If you know of a good rule of thumb or guide for this it would be great!

thanks,
Andrew

[Fletch]

Build accurate models, the engine needs the face normals pointing the correct direction in order to calculate refraction, etc, properly.
If wanting refraction through glass, you need thick glass. Use the "realistic glass" template.

Unfortunately KT's site is down... it will be recovered.

Here's a good tutorial using liquid in a glass as an example.
Liquid In A Glass - How To Model Wine or Water - by Massimo

[Fletch]

N-K is for metals, mostly, sorry.
https://www.google.com/search?q=n-k+dat ... k+database

Use the proper IOR for your glass/plastic materials:
http://refractiveindex.info/
http://www.filmetrics.com/refractive-index-database

[Turner]

Thanks!

I'll take a look.

Andrew